


In a Name

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Coulson and his ridiculous crush on Skye, Coulson is not Skye's father, Coulson makes Skye feel like she belongs, F/M, Making Out, Names matter, Skye catches on, Skye family feels, Skye gives Coulson hope, Skye is a fucking adult, Skye's name is Skye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2560430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Closely after 2x06 as Skye is restoring identities of the team, she ponders creating a last name for herself. Coulson has a thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Name

“I haven’t technically _legally_ existed in so long, I almost don’t know what to do.”

Coulson smiles at her and stands from his desk, walks across the room to stand by her side so they stare up at the large screen together. There is a picture of Skye and a great deal of — partially fake, partially real — personal information that will soon constitute her legal identity.

“When did you erase yourself the first time?”

“I was eighteen.”

“That’s how old I was when I joined SHIELD,” he tells her unnecessarily.

“I know.” Skye smiles at him, turns her eyes away from her file just briefly before turning back to the screen. “You handed over your identity to someone else. I was trying to take mine back.”

“The name you had before…”

“Mmmhmm?”

“You never told me what it was.”

“Does it matter?”

Skye turns back and meets his eyes, and Coulson holds her gaze for a long time, head tilted to the side.

“No,” he answers. “It doesn’t. You’re Skye, that’s what matters.”

“Thank you.”

She nods at him and then looks forward, to where a cursor blinks over an empty field where her last name should go. It’s what’s really been holding her up, he knows. She’s said this to him before — no family, no last name.

“You don’t need a last name.” He keeps looking at her even though she’s still looking up at the screen.

“I know.”

“But you want one?”

“Your last name ties you to something. It says that you aren’t alone in the world.”

“You’re _not_ alone in the world,” Coulson tells her.

“I know.” Skye meets his eyes, smiles slightly.

“If we tracked down your father, if we found out his name, would you want —”

“No. No. I mean, I guess I had always wondered before. But now that I know what he is…”

“You don’t, technically, know what he is.”

“He’s a murderer.”

Coulson nods once, frowns.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “Even when we agreed that it was too dangerous, that we had to stop looking, I always hoped…”

“That I’d find something?”

“Something good. You deserve it. You deserve to feel you belong to something good.”

“I do belong to something good,” she tells him as she sways towards him and bumps her shoulder against his.

Coulson smiles down at her, too fond and too open, and she smiles back.

“You could take my name,” he suggests. It comes out _heavier_ than intended, and he swallows at the wary look on her face.

“Coulson…” She drops her gaze from his before she looks back up with a crooked smile.

“Because you’re my family, Skye.”

“And you’re mine,” she agrees, so easily. “It’s just that...taking your name? Unless it was…” She stops herself, awkwardness palpable between them.

“Skye?”

“It would be kind of weird, is all.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah. Like...that’s something you do when you adopt someone.”

He frowns.

“Like I was your daughter or something.”

“But you’re an adult.”

Skye laughs at that, and much of her wariness, much of _her_ awkwardness at least, seems to evaporate.

“True. That’s why it would be weird.”

“Yes, I guess it would.”

The idea — adopting her, treating her like a daughter — sits like a rock in his stomach.

“And no offense, sir, but… I don’t really think of you that way.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“That’s good to know.”

She gets closer to him, right up against him, and she examines his face closely.

Coulson feels his heart rate pick up and he swallows back a frisson of nerves — the kind of feeling that something big is about to happen.

“How _did_ you mean it?”

That’s a difficult question because the truth is that he doesn’t _know_ how he meant it. It sort of came out without making a solid connection to his brain.

“How do you think of me?” He asks a question to answer a question.

Skye smiles at his non-answer and closes the small gap between them. She looks hesitant for all of a second before she pushes up on her toes and presses her lips against his in a too-brief kiss. Coulson gasps against her mouth, allowing her to capture his lower lip for a split second before she rocks back down on her heels.

“I pretty much think of you like that.”

She looks remarkably unphased, at least to him, but he feels a bit as though the whole world has shifted. A moment passes as he stares at her, and then another, and the nerves start to show on Skye’s face.

Coulson takes a deep, slow breath and then leans forward to kiss her. He hesitates, just for a moment, his nose brushing against the side of her face before his lips connect with hers.

Skye returns his kiss instantly and forcefully, tugging his head down, and he steps further into her personal space and slides his hands behind her back, pulls her body up against his. Skye’s mouth is so _urgent_ against his, and he finds that he can’t get her body close enough, so he walks her backwards until he’s pinned her up against the brick wall, in between the two office windows.

She groans at the feeling of his body pressing against hers, and Coulson works one leg between hers so that she’s rubbing up against him as they kiss. He runs his hands up the side of her body, thumbs caressing the sides of her breasts where they’re pressed into his chest, and she moans into his mouth. Her fingers in his hair pull him impossibly closer as she angles her hips against his and he can’t help but grind himself against her.

Skye is the one who breaks it, who pulls her mouth off of his in order to look him in the eye, though she doesn’t move her leg, which she has managed to wrap around his hip in order to press them closer together. Coulson slides his hand up her outer thigh to hold her leg in place.

“You think of me like this?”

“I shouldn’t,” he answers.

“Why?”

“I’m _old_ ,” he sighs, leans forward to kiss her forehead, the chasteness of the gesture somewhat undermined by the way his erection is pressed against the heat between her thighs.

“That doesn’t sound like you at all.”

He laughs at that.

“Facing this…”

“It’s made you feel old?”

“It’s made me feel my age,” he corrects her, and Skye frowns.

“I don’t like the way you’re talking. You don’t talk like that.”

“How do I talk?”

Skye pulls his head back down and kisses him soundly as she rocks her pelvis up against his, pushing up against his erection until he groans into her mouth. She pulls back too soon, though.

“You talk like you don’t care about age. You talk like you have hope. You talk like...like you care about figuring out the truth of things.”

Coulson nods and drops his head to her shoulder.

“I’m scared,” he admits quietly into her neck. “I’m scared of what will happen to me. I don’t want to lose myself. I don’t want to hurt people.”

“Like Ward said Garrett did.”

He nods.

“We’re going to fix it, Coulson. I promise you, we’re going to fix it.”

“If we can’t, I’ve asked May —”

“Don’t say it.” Skye cuts him off, shaking her head. “Don’t say it. I understand, but just…”

Coulson nods. He gets it; she needs to have hope. Hope doesn’t sound so bad to him.

He kisses her — an apology, a promise that he’ll be more hopeful, a promise that _she_ makes him more hopeful. When Skye breaks off the kiss with one last soft, lingering press of her lips, she smiles at him as she drops her leg to the ground.

“Let’s finish my identity. We have a lot of work to do,” she informs him, seeming all business. Coulson backs away from her and watches her pull herself together.

She walks back to where they had been standing earlier and picks up her tablet, hits a few buttons and finalizes her identity — without a last name.

“So you don’t want to take my name?”

“Not yet.” Their eyes lock, and Coulson can’t help but return the sweet smile that breaks across her face.

It definitely gives him hope.

  
  



End file.
